Carlo

Carlo can most often be found sitting cross-legged with his shoes off half-way down the street from the Eagle and Child Pub, the legendary watering hole for authors like C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

He wears a baggy red fleece pull-over that engulfs his body hanging on his slumped shoulders like a weathered flag. His salt-and-pepper hair has a perpetual stringiness that can only come from the outdoors. The tangles shake around his ears like weeds on the edge of the River Thames in the wind. I ask him if he’d like a cigarette and he replies, “Absolutely”.  I sit down next to him with my back against the cool stone wall, pulling out my field notes, and start off with something easy,

“What’s your neck tattoo mean?” It’s some sort of star with script. I’ve never seen anything like it. Pulling down his collar he explains it’s a Celtic “B”, and then he leans forward, edging out of his collar further, revealing “Lucinda” in flowery script across the back of his neck,

“Lucinda was my wife. She died twelve years ago, struck by the tube. That’s when I started drinking, and I kept drinking for eight years. Been sober the last four, but yeah that’s about how long I’ve been homeless.” When he talks he uses his thin lips to cover up the teeth he may or may not have. I think it’s the latter, with him being outdoors for twelve years; over half of my natural born life.

“Carlo, so my question for you is, you see people every day, all day—”

“Yeah,” he nods absent-mindedly, cutting off from conversation to ask pedestrians for change. I don’t mind, I figure this will be a standard for these conversations. In a sense, he’s working.

“—And people see you,” he cuts me off with a laugh,

“People don’t see me. Most of the time they just pretend I’m not here. Y’know sometimes they’re nice, but mostly they ignore me.” I agreed with him in that moment while two older women walked by and he asked for some spare change. They both refused, but as passing one, in a flower-print dress, turned over her shoulder and said,

“Sorry, have a blessed day, love.”

“It’s always nice to be acknowledged like that.” I nod in agreement.

“Okay, Carlo, but people see you, and you see people, what’s one thing you’d tell those people who see you on the street? What do you want them to know?” He turns toward me a little bit, bowing his head.

“Some people look at me as a waste of space, or loser. But I have no bills. The two things I worry about every day are feeding and finding a place to sleep. So I consider myself happier than a lot of them.” He leans back against the wall continuing, “But I’d tell them to love their families, and to tell them that they love them, and not to give them shit, y’know. Just tell the people you love that you love them because you don’t have forever.” I start to thank Carlo for his time, but he’s a step ahead of me,

“No, thank-you for the cigarette. But what I could really use is one of those twenty pound notes in your notebook.” I instantly feel like an idiot for not considering the implications of storing my money in the notebook I’m recording interviews in. The arrogance and amateur nature of flashing so much cash isn’t lost on me.

“Carlo, I’m a broke student, this is my money for the week. I can give you five pounds.”

“Five pounds won’t get me a room for the night. I need to make at least ten.” He can see that he hasn’t swayed me and quickly renegotiates, “Tell you what, what if I give you all the change I’ve made today?” Digging into some hidden cache under his fleece he presents me with something like seven pounds and fifty or so odd pence. I slide him the ten pound note, taking the loss, but thankful for the nearly-free lesson for my subsequent interviews.  He continues, “If you need weed the one thing I will tell you is don’t give them the money until they have it in hand. A lot of these guys will lead you somewhere and go into a flat, disappearing out of some other door or alley-way and you’ll never see them again; not me, but there are guys that will.” As much as I’d take Carlo up on the offer, I don’t see myself putting him to work. I’m not ready to risk all that I’ve got going on for a joint, and it took me a long time to see things like that.

As I get up to leave I shake Carlo’s hand thanking him again for his time and he replies, “Thank you for sitting and talking with me Christopher.” And I pause, partly because I realize I never told him my name, and partly because it isn’t Christopher.

“Saw your name on the inside of your notebook when you opened it. I’m out on the streets, but y’know I can read,” he says with a side-eye smile and nod.

 

 

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